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Posts Categorized: App Economy

Eleanor Margolis had used PayPal for more than a decade when the online payment provider blocked her account in January. The reason: She was 16 years old when she signed up, and PayPal Holdings Inc. insists she should have known the minimum age is 18, because the rule is clearly stated in terms and conditions she agreed… Read more »

New British culture secretary Matt Hancock has become the first MP to launch his own smartphone app. The app features picture galleries and videos of the West Suffolk MP and updates on his activities. It also allows users to sign up as friends and chat with other fans of the Matt Hancock app. First-time users… Read more »

Valued at a staggering $12 billion, Pinterest is one of the digital world’s most successful platforms. Yet somehow, the image-sharing app has managed to sidestep the pitfalls that have tripped up some of Silicon Valley’s other big players, such as Twitter and its trolls, Facebook and its fake news and YouTube and its filter failures. Source: CBC News Date: January 26th, 2018 Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/pinterest-ramona-pringle-1.4483331 Discussion 1) Pinterest claims that by saying… Read more »

Apple’s smart assistant, Siri, already taps into Shazam, allowing users to verbally ask: “What song is playing?” and has done so for more than three years. But with growing competition between Apple Music and Spotify – which also ties into Shazam – Apple may have felt the need to secure the service rather than risk… Read more »

“Thanks to mobile payments, it is entirely possible that we will see a major country such as China become a predominantly cashless society in five years’ time, if not sooner.” Source: BBC Technology News Date: November 21, 2017 Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/The_disruptors_money_changing Discussion 1) What would it mean in your country to have it operate completely cashlessly? 2) Friction-free transactions… Read more »

The average teenager is on track to spend nearly a decade of their life staring at a smartphone, and that’s no accident, according to an industry insider who shared some time-sucking secrets of the app design trade. CBC Marketplace travelled to Dopamine Labs, a startup in Venice, Calif., that uses artificial intelligence and neuroscience to help companies… Read more »

Voruganti Surendra is a farmer who grows paddy rice on an acre of farmland in Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh. He and hundreds of his fellow farmers are using a new app that can recognise a growing number of crop pests and diseases and give advice on how to treat them. “It is very useful,” he says. “Farmers… Read more »

For years Persian speakers used the Arabic keyboard on the iPhone, which was not really ideal for writing quickly or accurately in Persian. Android devices as well as Apple computers have Persian keyboards, but until this week the option wasn’t available on Apple phones or iPads. Source: BBC Technology News Date: September 28th, 2017 Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41355541 Discussion 1)… Read more »

New research suggests that smartphones can be easily fooled by fake fingerprints that have been digitally composed. Source: New York Times Date: April 25th, 2017 Link: https://www.thestar.com/business/tech_news/2017/04/11/smartphone-fingerprint-sensors-may-not-be-as-secure-as-you-think.html Discussion 1) Biometrics has been touted as a very secure way to ensure the security of technology. What could we do better now that we know fingerprints are so easily falsifiable?… Read more »

A 2003 study found that the number of people who consented to be organ donors was about 80 percent higher in countries with opt-out policies–(Would you like to refuse to join the organ donor registry?) –than those with opt-in policies (Would you like to join the organ donor registry? Source: FAST Company Date: April 18th, 2017 Link: https://www.fastcompany.com/40403706/the-subtle-power-of-default-choices Discussion… Read more »